Her Fearful Symmetry

I loved, loved, loved The Time Traveler's Wife, so I was greatly anticipating this second novel by Audrey Niffenegger last year.  When it came out, I scooped it up immediately and was excited to settle in for another good read. 

It's a ghost story set in Highgate Cemetery.  It's an intriguing story, and the story builds for three quarters of the book and could have been a really wonderful story if it had a couple more hundred pages or so.  It begins with two estranged twin sisters.  One dies, Elspeth, and bequeaths her London apartment to her sister's twin daughters with one request, her sister can never set foot in the place. While the younger twins are inseparable, you learn that all is not as it seems and one is suffocating the other in her dominance.

It seemed as though the characters were being well developed and a story was unfolding, but I kept waiting and seeing I was getting closer and closer to the end of the story and wondering what the big climax was and what type of resolution could be completed in just a few short pages, and then it builds into absurdity that just leaves you thinking "huh?"  In the end, it made me wonder if the author just got sick of the story and wanted to quickly wrap it up. It felt like this wonderfully slow build that just drops you off a cliff at the end.  You feel invested in the characters and want more story, but it just ends in a ridiculous way.  She could have done so much more with the story, it was very disappointing. 

...And yet another annoying book review

Well I guess you can see what I do when I'm sick? I curl up in a chair or in the bed with my favorite quilt in the whole world (this is a big thank you to my wonderful mother, the quilter. I begged her for it the minute we picked it up at the machine quilting place), a glass of pineapple juice, and a big thick book. I finished this one in 2 days, it was about 530 something pages. The Time Traveler's Wife. Oh my gosh was it good. I gave up sleep, food, and catching up on my Tivo'd shows for this one. I started it very late Friday night or early Saturday morning as I could not sleep being sick and then I have read it nearly nonstop since Saturday afternoon after my husband and I put up the trampoline for the kids (and oh my gosh what a fun adventure that was. I think prison inmates should be forced into trampoline installation without instructions, that might sway them from commiting crimes ever again). So I just finished it literally minutes ago. Anyway, the book is about Henry and Clare, a husband and wife. It's a love story. Henry travels through time (sorta like the show Journeyman -- which is really good and I suspect they stole the idea from this book, except the journeyman guy is never naked, I guess that wouldn't fly on regular tv, lol). He can't control it, and he can't control where he goes, but he mostly ends up meeting Clare as a child and teenager, different stages in her life, as well as meeting himself as a child throughout different ages in his life. It's such a wonderful love story told through both Henry and Clare, and you learn different sides of the events through both their eyes. It goes throughout their lives until the end and it is so sweet to see their neverending love. It truly is an addictive story. From the time I read the first page, I was totally hooked. I'm about to run over to bn.com and see what other book Audrey Niffenegger has written.

P.S. My super secret pattern is almost done. I wrote up the rough draft a couple days ago while I was pissed off at my husband and trying it ignore him, so I need to edit it a little before I put it up and make sure I didn't forget anything, but it's almost ready.